The ultimate B-movie caper, helmed by the late, great friend of the American Cinematheque, Richard Fleischer (THE NARROW MARGIN). The toughest mug in noir, Charles McGraw, plays the prototypical L.A. robbery-homicide dick matched against goggle-eyed heavy William Talman in the film noir equivalent of King Kong vs. Godzilla! With sultry Adele Jergens as a duplicitous burlesque queen, strutting her stuff through gritty downtown L.A. locations.

This film always receives its share of votes as one of the finest noirs ever made - and the spiciest of its many ingredients is the unforgettable Marie Windsor. She and co-star Charles McGraw trade priceless purple putdowns as he ferries her across the rails from Chicago to L.A., where she’s scheduled to testify in a racket-busting trial. Plenty of switchbacks along the way, rendered with maximum punch and pace by director Richard Fleischer and producer Stanley Rubin.

After several years of playing tenacious cops or cruel gunmen, character actor Charles McGraw was elevated to leading-man status by RKO boss Howard Hughes, becoming the studio's "B" version of Bob Mitchum. Nobody could clip off dialogue like McGraw. In this prototypical noir, he finally reveals a soft center, as an insurance investigator who goes crooked trying to satisfy an avaricious dame (Joan Dixon).